Make Peace

Principle 8: Make Peace – Be free to love people and show them how to love.
(Matthew 5:9)

Basic Principle by Questions

1. When you love someone, what are some ways you show it?
2. When the person you love asks you to do something significant, what is your typical response?
3. What has God asked / told us to do in this life? Read the following passages.

   Matthew 5: 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.”

   2 Corinthians 5: “18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,[e] so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

4. How does knowing His love more deeply influence how you feel about what He tells us and desires for us to do? Are peacemakers / ministers of reconciliation needed?
5. How likely are you to do it? Why?
6. How does knowing His love increase the potential of long-term faithfulness to God?
7. If you could go anywhere and do anything in service to Jesus, where / what would it be?
8. How likely is it that you could experience the joy of being a peacemaker? What impact does a growing love for Christ and a heart that is being purified have on a person’s ability and drive to become a peacemaker?
9. How do people treat peacemakers? What has happened to you in the past when you attempted to serve as a peacemaker for others who had conflict with each other, with God, or with you?

Irreducible Minimums

• Having a more accurate view of God, self, and others positions us to be a more effective peacemaker.
• Open Prison Doors: Peacemakers reflect Christ as they live and communicate His love drawing enemies toward peace with each other and with God. Peacemakers who are not growing in love have reater potential to experience additional hurt during their attempts to be ministers of reconciliation.
• Peacemakers who are not effectively engaged tend to become trouble-makers or just more troubled.
• Being peacemakers identifies us as children of God.
• Being identified with God as His child brings a true sense of purpose and meaning to life.
• Other “identities” we have adopted can’t give us the sense of belonging that God desires and designed for us as children of His … loved and adopted.